How & when to cut back a wildflower meadow

hi and welcome back to garden ninja for the next installment in my wildlife garden design series now today i'm going to be showing you how to mow a wildflower meadow to ensure that every year your wildflower meadow comes back up with loads of flowers and loads of beneficial interest for wildlife and insects so come on let's get cracking [Music] so mowing a wildflower meadow is really important because it helps keep the competition down from grasses and weeds and give your annual or perennial wildflowers more of a chance of becoming established and flowering and that's really what you want is a really diverse mix of different flowers if you were just to leave it and let the grass grow eventually the grass the ducks the necklace and all those really voracious weeds would out-compete your wildflowers so what i need to do today is to cut back all of this meadow and it may feel brutal but that's the best way to encourage vigorous growth next year [Music] now with most wildfire meadows you mow them three times a year so unlike normal regular lawns where you're mowing them maybe once a week every 10 days they require much less maintenance the first cut is done around march time in the uk just as spring starting as things are coming to life the second cut also known as the hay cut or the second hay cut happens around august time and that usually feels quite awkward because everything's in full bloom but it's really important to keep the vigor of the meadow going and then the final cut the one i'm doing today is usually an autumn now because i've only established this meadow this year i've missed out that august hay cut because all these plants were baby seedlings and really needed some more time to settle in so i'm doing the last cut today and then the next cut will be around late february early march and then we'll start the season with a vang [Music] so there are three main methods in which you can cut back your wildflower meadow and it depends on the size complexity and the amount of time you have now the first method is to use a side and if you think of a grim reaper with that big crook that's pretty much what it is it's a great core workout and probably the most environmentally friendly what you do is using the side you make big sweeping motions like that using your core and it will slice through all the grass and flowers the second method is to use a strimmer and stream away all the wildflowers and grass and then collect them up and compost them now if you're going to be using a petrol or an electric powered strimmer to cut back your wildflower meadow it's always advisable you wear both goggles and air defenders and the third method is to use a mower or a ride on mower with its blade set to the highest height and then you can mow over it collect up all your clippings and then compost them and it's really important that you collect the clippings because you want to reduce the fertility and that may sound completely bonkers to most gardeners but wildflowers actually do better with low or poor fertile soil it also means the grasses and weeds don't have as many nutrients to compete with them so it's really beneficial to your wifi meadow if you remove all the clippings so now another top tip is to mow your meadow in stages and that will just help wildlife move on and prevent you from decimating the ecosystem that we've carefully created now whether you've got a huge meadow or a tiny one it's advisable to leave a few shaggy rough bits maybe around the edges or to even mow it in thirds and leave roughly a week between each set of cuts and then by the end of it after three weeks you're going to have a completely moan meadow but it just gives mother nature a bit more of a chance wildfire meadows are a great way to increase diversity and wildlife into your garden and if you follow my handy guide you'll know that you need to cut them between two and three times a year dependent on the type of wild farmer you have the first cut's always in march which is going to reinvigorate all your wildfire seedlings to start making a bid for freedom the second cut is in august also known as the hay cut and then your last cut is usually towards the end of september early october which is then pretty much the winter cuts and then you wait until the next march so it's super easy but if you follow this process they're relatively low maintenance and you're gonna have a gorgeous meadow that you can enjoy for almost nine months of the year if you've liked this video why not subscribe to my youtube channel where there are loads more garden design hints tips and hacks to help you make your garden awesome and make sure to check out the rest of this wildlife garden design series i've been garden ninja off inside for a cup of coffee happy gardening

Channel: Garden Ninja: Lee Burkhill

Views: 14,376

Rating: 4.9714966 out of 5

Keywords: meadow, gardening, wildflower, wildlife meadow, garden guide, how to cut a meadow, meadow tips, eco gardening, mowing, meadow mowing, garden help, garden ninja, lee burkhill, wildlife garden, wildflower meadow, how to

Id: FvxJ5bbLWQY

Length: 6min 5sec (365 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020